This new HBO movie, premiering on January 19th at 9pm, is the first dramatization of the notorious (and catastrophic) Brexit campaign that resulted in Britain’s decision to leave the EU more than two years ago. Benedict Cumberbatch is the balding Dominic Cummings, the guy who ran the “Vote Leave” campaign in the election that upended everything in the UK and still isn’t resolved.

It was a big day for shows I don’t watch on the SAG TV side, with Ozark and Mrs. Maisel leading their respective drama and comedy categories, and likely to win the ensemble prize in both. Otherwise, SAG went with a lot of nominations for veterans, as usual. These are pretty boring to me, to be honest. How can The Americans be nominated for ensemble without either of its leads getting in?

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series“The Americans”“Better Call Saul”“The Handmaid’s Tale”“Ozark”“This Is Us”

Lots of wealth spreading in these Critics Choice nominations for TV, which I tend to like more than the move side, because they do go in lots of different directions. Finally, somebody nominated Jodie Comer for Killing Eve! Took long enough. And I like seeing Holly Taylor and Noah Emmerich nominated for The Americans alongside the leads for once. There’s some cool picks in Matthew MacFadyen and Rhea Seehorn for acting, and One Day at a Time and The Middle in comedy series. Inspired choices all around here.

Netflix may be trigger happy in canceling their many Marvel shows (so long Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Daredevil and very soon to Jessica Jones and The Punisher, I’m guessing), but that doesn’t mean they want to get rid of all their comic book properties. This new one, based on a Dark Horse comic, looks pretty cool actually. Ellen Page gets top billing here. Look for it on February 15th,

As usual, the Globe nominations on the TV side were filled with new stuff (hello, Bodyguard!), although they did bring back The Americans’ Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell for farewell acting noms. Sharp Objects got showered with nods as well, with Amy Adams having a particularly good day with Globes noms galore for both this and her new movie Vice on the film side. They also loved their big movie star names of course, with Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, and Jim Carrey all invited to the show. I don’t know if A Very English Scandal can win anything on Globes night (Gianni Versace is probably the frontrunner), but definitely check that show out, people. It’s sooo good.

Best Television Series (Drama)

The Americans

Bodyguard

Homecoming

Killing Eve

Pose

Best Television Series (Comedy or Musical)

Barry

The Good Place

Kidding

The Kominsky Method

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Best Television Limited Series or TV Movie

The Alienist

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Escape at Dannemora

Sharp Objects

A Very English Scandal

Part of Hugh Grant’s career revival year, A Very English Scandal was loved by the HFPA

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series (Drama)

Caitriona Balfe, Outlander

Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid's Tale

Sandra Oh, Killing Eve

Julia Roberts, Homecoming

Keri Russell, The Americans

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Drama)

Jason Bateman, Ozark

Stephan James, Homecoming

Billy Porter, Pose

Richard Madden, Bodyguard

Matthew Rhys, The Americans

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical)

Kristen Bell, The Good Place

Candice Bergen, Murphy Brown

Alison Brie, GLOW

Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Debra Messing, Will & Grace

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical)

Sacha Baron Cohen, Who Is America?

Jim Carrey, Kidding

Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method

Donald Glover, Atlanta

Bill Hader, Barry

Killing Eve was rightfully celebrated, but why do people keep forgetting to nominate Jodie Comer? This show was a two-hander

Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Amy Adams, Sharp Objects

Patricia Arquette, Escape at Dannemora

Connie Britton, Dirty John

Laura Dern, The Tale

Regina King, Seven Seconds

Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Antonio Banderas, Genius: Picasso

Daniel Bruhl, The Alienist

Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose

Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Patricia Clarkson, Sharp Objects

Penelope Cruz, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Thandie Newton, Westworld

Yvonne Strahovski, The Handmaid's Tale

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Alan Arkin, Kominsky Method

Kieran Culkin, Succession

Edgar Ramirez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Ben Whishaw, A Very English Scandal

Henry Winkler, Barry

Bodyguard’s Richard Madden (otherwise known as my new TV husband) was nominated this morning, along with his show

HBO’s comedy-drama that caught critics’ attention shows up on the AFI Top 10

AFI’s annual list of the top ten TV shows wasn’t too exciting this year. But I have to admit that a lot of my own favorites of 2018 weren’t American shows, so that’s probably why I’m less enthused about these picks. Although come on, where’s GLOW on this list? Major oversight, AFI.

Looks like I posted my Sabrina review just in time. Netflix has revealed the official premiere date for Season 2 and released this new teaser, which seems to be upping the “fun” factor, which would be the right decision in my opinion (if that’s an accurate reflection of the second season). The first two seasons were filmed back to back, which is how Season 2 gets to drop just about 5 months after the first.

In case anyone was clamoring for a non-musical version of Les Mis, here it is. What looks like a ravishing production for the BBC is going to air in the UK over Christmas and here sometime next year on PBS for Masterpiece Theatre. Hey, these period dramas are like catnip for me, so I’m in.

I was reluctant to watch Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, knowing that it came from Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, or the creator of Riverdale, one of the worst shows I currently watch on TV. Riverdale is sort of a love-to-hate-it show for me, but I can only tolerate one of those, so if Sabrina was going to be in that vein, I was out. But…I’m happy to say that while it is weird and gothic and horror adjacent at many points, unlike Riverdale, this is much more of a show whose subject matter warrants that kind of nuttiness, and Netflix is a platform that allows it to go to bloody and gruesome places that the CW wouldn’t, and as such, it’s much more fitting for Sacasa’s dark and gory sensibilities.

Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men stars as Sabrina Spellman, teen witch whose upcoming 16th birthday will culminate in a “dark baptism,” the event that will officially induct her into the Dark Lord’s (Satan) graces as a loyal servant. As we know from past TV shows and the Archie comics, she lives with her aunts, witches Hilda (Lucy Davis) and Zelda (Mirando Otto), goes to Greendale High and has her dumb devoted boyfriend Harvey (Ross Lynch) to follow her around like a clueless puppy while she works her magic at odd times.

But unlike the innocent, harmless magic of the old comics, these occult practices are now hardcore and very violent. The witch world is also extremely patriarchal, which imbues the show with a kind of feminist bent at times, but it keeps sliding back and forth on which message it wants to endorse. The good things about the show are plentiful- there’s the cast, which is perfectly game and up to all the tonal changes, Otto and Davis in particular as the appealing aunts and Chance Perdomo as Cousin Ambrose, who lives in the Spellman manor/mortuary in this version. The manor itself is also something of a character in this, as an enormous, haunted looking, multichambered maze that daunts no one inside it, as the sunny Sabrina considers it home without thinking twice about it. And unlike a lot of problematic Netflix genre shows, this one sees the value in the standalone episode- there are ongoing arcs and mythology, but this one more or less follows the Buffy template of “Sabrina goes to witch school,” “Sabrina fights a dream demon,” “a Spellman family Thanksgiving,” etc.

A dark new ‘Sabrina’ still sees poor Harvey as bamboozled as ever

Despite the good things though, there are some contradictory underpinnings in the premise. One is the question of why Sabrina wants to be a witch at all. Part of the appeal of the original concept was the idea of magic and witchcraft as fun- an influence on those original comics from early 60’s fantasy sitcoms like Bewitched and The Munsters, etc. In this, everything is pretty horrific and Sabrina spends most of her time defeating bad witches and saving her friends from the evils of the Dark Lord and his minions. She doesn’t want to be part of murder or cannibalism or ritual sacrifice or bloodshed and yet this stuff seems to be the religious foundation of everything about the witch world as we see it, in every episode. She seems to hate everything about it, yet it never occurs to her to not want to participate in it, which is kind of strange, especially as the episodes go on. If the show wants to be dark, I think Sabrina herself has to have an inherent dark side to her as well, she can’t just still be the sunny, happy teen from past versions of this material.

The other issue is her annoying human friends. In the grand tradition of all versions of Harvey Kinkle, he remains an utterly clueless dolt, a human bore that Sabrina spends way too much time preoccupied with. He fulfills the usually female role of “love interest kept in the dark about the hero’s secret identity,” but there’s kind of a reason that stereotype is being retired lately. Her other friends Roz and Susie are equally uninteresting and Sabrina’s eagerness to protect her human friends isn’t really justified by their personalities. But there’s a lot of plot going on on this show, so even if some characters are boring, the cast is big enough to rotate through frequently enough that we don’t have to hang out with anyone too long (Harvey excluded, unfortunately).

Despite the issues with it, I do like the show quite a bit. The attempt at mixing humor and horror is very Buffy-like and the appreciation for episodic plots mixed with longer arcs is such a nice change of pace from the draggy Marvel shows on this platform. Also, thanks to seasons of just ten episodes (a good number), this won’t have to cycle through endless nuttiness (again, see Riverdale), as it wraps up before you can get tired of it. Kiernan Shipka brings an eager, likable sweetness to this role that’s such a shift from her cold, icy, Sally Draper days that it makes me think she’s a real talent at still a very young age. These new Sabrina adventures pay tribute to all that have come before while embracing an entirely new tone and style of its own, and I would strongly suggest giving it a try. Especially if you’re really into the occult. It delivers on that score in ways you’re probably not expecting. I wasn’t.

What are the makings of a great government conspiracy thriller? You’ve got to have sex, murder, action, ludicrous plot twists and some crazy good suspense, right? Well, every single element is here in Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard (picked up by Netflix after becoming one of the BBC’s biggest hits in more than a decade) and as such it joins the ranks of 24 and Homeland when they were at their absolute peaks. This is some very exciting and addictive television.

The impossibly dreamy (really) Richard Madden stars as David Budd, an army vet and cop who’s riddled with PTSD from tours in Afghanistan that he refuses to receive treatment for, and who now works as head of security detail to a cabinet minister in the UK government. Keeley Hawes plays Julia Montague, the Home Secretary and conservative MP that he’s charged with protecting after thwarting a terrorist attack on a train to London (a highly intense, suspenseful sequence that opens the first 25 minutes of the show at the highest possible anxiety level). Even though David has frequent PTS episodes and his marriage is in shambles, he’s kind of a superhero bodyguard, at one point driving a car backwards through the streets of London directly into incoming sniper fire so he can go after the shooter himself. No wonder Julia can’t resist him (also, like I said, he’s played by a smoldering, blue-eyed Scot for whom this entire series works as an audition to be the next James Bond- seriously people, look no further).

Richard Madden shines in a breakthrough role- have we found our next Bond?

Their steamy affair takes on new weight as an intricate government conspiracy unfolds to target Julia for her political views and ambitions, but who’s really after her and why? I don’t want to give away any spoilers (this show is only six episodes and the plot twists are abundant), but let’s just say if anything happens to this bodyguard’s principal (and lover) he’s going to go Dirty Harry on your ass to find out what’s going on, rules and PTSD be damned. The action scenes are fantastic in this series, expertly directed and thrilling in every moment, and while plausibility may take a bit of a hit in certain spaces, it’s so entertaining and gripping that I never cared a whit if something was realistic or not.

This was obviously conceived as a complete story that ends where it’s supposed to and reveals all the answers in satisfying fashion, but Madden is so charismatic and has such a good screen presence that it’s quite easy to imagine another season with a new conspiracy for him to unravel, new threats to take down, etc. That’s because David Budd, (unlike say Homeland’s Carrie Mathison), is actually good at what he does despite his mental health issues, and though his fitness for duty is understandably disputed, believe me, you’d want this guy protecting you. It’s a total star-making performance and the best kind of roller coaster ride of a season.